BAPTISM OF FIRE: my first initiative wasn’t $30 tabs, it was limiting affirmative action.

Wed, July 6, 2022

Obviously, I’m most known for lowering car tab taxes with our initiatives.

But my first battle in the initiative arena was with Initiative 200 in 1997. That campaign’s challenges inspired me to devote my life to activism.

I had just turned 32 years old.

I was 5 years married, living in Greenlake.

For 10 years, I had started and run a one-person mail order company selling fraternity and sorority watches.

I had only recently started to pay attention to politics.

But on January 14, 1997, I saw a story in the Wall Street Journal that changed my life forever.

It reported that a very heroic man had an initiative he was exporting to other states:

I had never sponsored an initiative before.

At that point in my life, my only experience with initiatives was collecting 100 signatures for a local initiative requiring a public vote on tearing down the Kingdome and replacing it with what would become the Mariners sports stadium.

From January – March 1997, I did everything I could to reach out and talk with others who had done initiatives.

I learned that doing a statewide initiative was brutally difficult.

That only made me want to do it more.

I teamed up with a freshman legislator named Scott Smith who also had zero experience doing an initiative.

We worked with Ward and his organization to draft the initiative language pretty much the same as the initiative that California voters had just approved.

We filed the Washington State Civil Rights Initiative in March 1997.

To her credit, Democrat Attorney General Christine Gregoire (unlike Bob Ferguson) followed the neutrality law.

She had the professionals in her office issue an unbiased description of the initiative:

“Shall government be prohibited from discriminating or granting preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in public employment, education, and contracting? Yes __ No __ “

The ACLU challenged that wording in court (they wanted “bans affirmative action” in the description even though the initiative didn’t do that).

Again, to her credit, Gregoire’s office vigorously defended their wording.

After a lot of back and forth with filings and oral argument, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Daniel Berschauer issued his ruling.

He sided with the AG and kept the title the same.

At that point, we had already won the entire campaign — we knew if we could get it on the ballot, the voters would pass it. 

We got a great kick-off endorsement from Ward:

So we printed up petitions and went to work.

From March through October, we worked our butts off trying to get the initiative qualified.

Scott’s role was fundraising, mine was promoting the initiative and handling the signature drive.

I managed to get a story in the Wall Street Journal about it:

Also a biggie in the Seattle Times:

But when it came to organizing the signature drive, I really struggled.

Because I didn’t know what I was doing because I’d never done it before.

But I kept trying anyway.

And I was falling in love with the process itself.

But what really hooked me was doing my first public debate. It was at the University of Washington.

I’d never done anything like it.

I was never on a debate team.

I had never done public speaking.

I had a WSU business degree, I wasn’t a poli sci major.

I had zero first-hand experience with affirmative action.

But I knew what I believed (that the government should treat everyone equally).

And that was enough.

The whole thing was raucous.

I was under constant attack by the guy I was debating, the moderator, almost every questioner, and the media.

I loved it.

I loved it because I was fighting for something I believed in.

I loved it because I was in the arena.

And I loved it because I knew that the voters would make the final decision.

Soon after the debate, we realized we were going to fall short on signatures.

So I called Ward and asked him to call KVI’s John Carlson to ask him take over the campaign.

Ward did and John agreed.

Thanks to John, with only a few weeks left in the signature drive, he successfully qualified the initiative (I dropped out because I decided to start working on a lower-car-tab-tax initiative).

John then ran a brilliant campaign and voters overwhelmingly passed the initiative (58%-42%). 

24 years later, it’s still the law today.

That campaign’s challenges inspired me to devote my life to activism.  

That was my baptism of fire in the political arena.

For all my efforts over the past 2+ decades, I ask you to help me overturn the AG’s ridiculously unconstitutional ruling against me so this never happens to anyone else ever again by donating to my legal defense fund:

Mail-in donation: Tim Eyman Legal Defense Fund, 500 106th Ave NE #709, Bellevue, WA, 98004
Or donate online:
By PayPal
By Credit/Debit

And now a message from Larry Jensen & Sid Maietto:

We’re asking folks to donate to our PAC so we can keep fighting for taxpayers with Jim Walsh’s initiative I-1491, the STOP ALL INCOME TAXES INITIATIVE. 

The taxpayers of Washington need our help now more than ever. Donate to our political committee so we can keep fighting for you:

Mail your check — made payable to “Permanent Offense I-1491” — to: Permanent Offense, PO Box 6151, Olympia, WA, 98507
Or donate online: PermanentOffense.com

Kindest Regards, 

Sid Maietto & Larry Jensen

— END —

Thanks everyone.

Larry, Tim, & Sid

P.S. Please — I urge you to donate to my legal defense fund today:

Mail-in donation: Tim Eyman Legal Defense Fund, 500 106th Ave NE #709, Bellevue, WA, 98004
Or donate online:
By PayPal
By Credit/Debit